Lemon Curd Recipe

If you like lemon, you are going to LOVE this easy and delicious homemade Lemon Curd for your cakes and cupcakes!

It has a wonderful silky smooth consistency and flavor with just the PERFECT amount of lemony tartness.

This delicious lemon curd is our favorite lemon filling for cakes and cupcakes, and it is so simple to make! We have several variations including orange curd and lime curd!

Table of Contents

Why we Love It

There are so many reasons to love this lemon curd recipe! Here are just a few:

Easy to Make with just a few simple ingredients
Delicious lemon flavor
Works as a great cake or cupcake filling
Perfect filling for citrus or white cakes, including orange cake, white velvet cake, lemon cupcakes and more!

How to Make Lemon Curd

*Find the full, printable recipe at the bottom of this post!

Curd fillings for cakes and cupcakes are so easy to make and they taste amazing! This luscious lemon curd filling has so much flavor! It all starts with a saucepan and a few simple ingredients.

First, combine the sugar, cornstarch and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly, until mixture thickens and comes to a boil (3-4 minutes).

Saucepan with whisk, sugar,cornstarch, and water

Heating sugar, cornstarch, and water in saucepan until thickened. Stir constantly with whisk.

Next, continue stirring as it boils for one minute more. Remove the pan from the heat.

Spoon about a half cup of the hot mixture into a small bowl with egg yolks and stir quickly until combined. Continue stirring, while pouring the egg mixture back into the saucepan. The egg yolks are what give the curd its lovely yellow color.

Pouring egg mixture into cornstarch, sugar, and water mixture.

Finally, return pan to medium heat and cook, stirring, until the curd is thickened and lemon colored (1-2 min). Remove from heat and stir in the butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

Let the lemon curd cool, then press plastic wrap onto the surface and refrigerate. The plastic wrap will prevent a skin from forming on the top. The lemon curd will thicken a bit as it cools.

What Cake Flavors go with Lemon Curd?

Lemon curd pairs wonderfully with White Cake, Yellow Cake, and Coconut Cake , but my FAVORITE is with our homemade Lemon Cake!

I just love lemon desserts, and everything about this filling is heavenly.

This lemon curd has a delightful silky smooth consistency, and you'll love how easily this light and flavorful lemon filling comes together!

Delicious Lemon Cakes

If you love lemon cakes, look no further! We have so many delicious lemon recipes to share with you.

You can find the full roundup here: Best Lemon Cakes, Fillings, & Frostings. Some of our most popular are Lemon Cake from Scratch, Lemon Velvet Cake, and Lemon Cupcakes!

Thanks for stopping by! If you give this recipe a try, we would love for you to leave a comment and photo below.

You can find our full collection of favorite recipes and free cake decorating tutorials in our Cake Recipes & Tutorials Section!

FAQs

When using this lemon filling for cupcakes, try injecting the lemon curd into the unfrosted cupcakes with a disposable piping bag!
I usually use a tip 12 for this. Simply insert the piping tip into the top of the cupcake and push it about halfway down. Then, give it a little squeeze for a second or two.
You can do a practice run on a plate to get an idea of how quickly the lemon curd comes out of the bag and adjust accordingly since you won't be able to see the amount of curd inside of the cupcake until you take a bite of it ;0)
Everyone is sure to love this instant boost of lemony goodness! Top off your cupcakes with a swirl of Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting (linked below) for an incredible dessert.

When using a soft filling such as lemon curd, mousse fillings, whipped cream fillings, etc. you'll want to first pipe a dam of frosting around the edge of the cake layer (about ¼ inch from the edge).

I usually pipe the dam with a medium sized round piping tip, or you can simply snip the end of the disposable piping bag away to create a medium sized opening. Then, pipe your dam.

Next, spread the soft filling within the dam and add the next layer of cake. The dam will prevent the lemon curd or other soft filling from escaping and oozing from the sides of the cake once the next layers are added.

If you've ever had this happen to you, you know how difficult it can be to fix! Not only will it mess up the look of your cake, but it can also cause bulging or sliding cake layers. Frosting dams are always worth the extra minute or two of time to make one.

There are so many cakes that pair perfectly with lemon curd! Homemade white cake, white velvet cake, lemon cake, and orange cake are just a few examples!

Our homemade Lemon Coconut Cake is another great example! We often pair our lemon curd cake fillings with homemade whipped cream!

Yes, homemade lemon curd as well as cakes with lemon curd filling should be refrigerated.

While this Lemon Curd recipe is at the top of our list, we also love Lemon Whipped Cream Filling, Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting, and an Easy Lemon Cream filling from our Lemon Cream Cake (which is a pudding-based "mousse")!

Lemon Curd Recipe

This easy, silky smooth lemon curd recipe tastes amazing and makes a wonderful filling for cakes and cupcakes!

Ingredients

¾ cup (150g) sugar
¼ cup (30g) cornstarch
1 cup (236g) water
2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
2 Tablespoons (28g) butter
1 Tablespooon grated lemon zest
4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Instructions

Combine sugar, cornstarch and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly, until mixture thickens and comes to a boil (3-4 minutes).
Boil, stirring, for 1 minute more.. Remove the pan from the heat.
Spoon about ½ cup of the hot mixture into a small bowl with egg yolks and stir quickly until combined. Continue stirring, while pouring the egg mixture back into the saucepan.
Return pan to medium heat and cook, stirring, until the curd is thickened and lemon colored (1-2 min). Remove from heat and stir in the butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest.-- Let the lemon curd cool, then press plastic wrap onto the surface, this will prevent a skin from forming on the top. Refrigerate.
This will fill a 2-3 layer 8 or 9 inch cake with some leftover. The recipe can be halved.
I have refrigerated the lemon curd for a week and it was fine....I'm not sure how long it will keep beyond that
Makes 1 ¼ cups

116 Comments

Melissa Diamond says:

June 18, 2012 at 10:21 am

Hi Lonnie-- Country Kitchen SweetArt (and probably others) sell fillings that are very stable at room temp. I would call them and ask them about their lemon filling.

http://www.countrykitchensa.com/shop/food-items/pastry-filling-lemon/46/532/798/619072/

The only other option that I can think of would be flavor buttercream with lemon extract.

Lonnie Bass says:

June 18, 2012 at 8:22 pm

Thank you so much Melissa!

Josie Carnevale says:

July 24, 2012 at 4:19 am

Hi, what does T mean for the buyer and lemon?

BeBe says:

July 24, 2012 at 7:58 am

I changed the recipe to read Tablespoon

Josie Carnevale says:

July 24, 2012 at 8:37 am

Thanks BeBe, you are a gem

thyme2play says:

August 3, 2012 at 7:11 pm

Not very familiar with making any filling but I would like to make a blueberry curd for my lemon cake. Can I substitute cooked down blueberries for the lemon juice?

BeBe says:

August 3, 2012 at 11:54 pm

Hi, I haven't tried that but it sounds delicious. I think it should work. Let me know if you give it a try.

thyme2play says:

August 5, 2012 at 5:00 pm

BeBe, thank you for responding to my question. I did make the blueberry lemon cured. I replaced 2 tbls lemon juice for 2 tbls of water. Then I used 7 tbls of the blueberry juice in place of the 4 tbls lemon juice. It was very good but I would have liked more of the blueberry flavor. I was afraid of making the filling too loose or I would have added more blueberry. I used it to fill a vanilla lemon cake (made using 2 boxes of vanilla cake mix and 1 box of lemon cake mix) so the blueberry really complimented the lemon flavor but the blueberry wasn't as pronounced as I would have liked it to be.

BeBe says:

August 5, 2012 at 9:15 pm

Hi thyme2play, I'm sorry it didn't turn out quite as you hoped. I would like to give that flavor a try sometime. Based on what you have said, I think I might try using blueberry jam instead of juice. Maybe 4 or more Tablespoons of blueberry jam in place of the 4 Tablespoons lemon juice (depending on how thin it was). In addition to making the blueberry curd and to try to deepen the blueberry flavor I would thin 2 or more Tablespoons blueberry jam with water if needed and warm slightly to thin, then spread over the layers. Then I would spread my blueberry curd over this. I'll let you know if I give it a try.

Sahdia Naveed says:

January 25, 2013 at 5:26 pm

Hi, please tell can we use this filling in a cake,tha has to be coverd with fondant? in that case,should we refrigerat the cake and for how many days?

Melissa Diamond says:

January 25, 2013 at 5:47 pm

Hi Sahdia-- This does need refrigeration. What type of fondant do you use? We refrigerate Satin Ice brand fondant covered cakes often with no trouble.

Paula M. says:

January 31, 2013 at 7:49 pm

Just made this today...very easy and so lemon tasting. Used some gorgeous lemons from the backyard and the egg yolks left over from a white cake I made using the whites only. Can't wait to try it with vanilla buttercream and white cake..hope it turns out good. :-)....oh yes, how long will it stay fresh in a covered container in the fridge? Thanks!